Your thoughts on an up-cycled knife.

[SURVIVAL&WEAPONS]

*this is not an attempt to sell anything, to anyone. This is solely for gathering different people's opinions, and feelings towards an up-cycled knife in finished product. There is no knife anywhere even near completion. Thank you.*

i have a question to ask; but first let me throw some bare bones info so you may understand where i'm coming from.

-i found some old blades which i believe are from a lawnmower. I'm thinking about up-cycling them to making a fixed blade. The blades have a saber grind and are in the general shape (40% to a finished product) which why i'm considering this task.

So my question: Would *you* take interest/appreciate a knife someone created by up-cycling something that would go to a junk heap? The blade has unknown steel; would that affect your feelings towards the knife? What are your thoughts on an up-cycled knife? Any elaboration on your thoughts/feelings is greatly appreciated.

 

[Cereal_killer]

With today's market I don't think they'd sell. You can hop on the internet and find a maker to make anything you want (if you can't find what your after already in production) and the materials are known and the maker is know and the heat treat is known to be good. If your serious about becoming a custom knife maker you pretty much have to use good materials, and old lawn mower blades arnt good materials, no matter how cool being "green" might be currently.

Now I'm not at all saying don't make them for your self/ friends/ for the experience, but I really doubt you'd sell a single one.

 

[bpeezer]

Your blade will have to be properly heat treated to serve as a knife. From what I've read, lawn mower blades are usually similar to 1080 carbon steel. Many people have good experiences recycling other blades into knives.

I don't particularly appreciate the concept of recycling blade steel, I believe the final product matters a whole lot more than the material origins. If it's a great performing knife, I'll like it. If not, I won't.

 

[Quiet]

I have a chopper that was made for me by an acquaintance sometime back. It is made from a part of an industrial lawn mower blade, pretty much as you describe. The steel is pitted, stained, and just all-around thoroughly unpleasant. Personally, I love it for exactly those reasons. What's the heat-treat? Who knows. I don't. Don't care either. What's the steel? Anything special? Who knows? Who cares? Not me. The only thing I know is that he wore out multiple high-end drill bits and saw blades getting this thing shaped. So, I imagine it's pretty tough. I chopped down a couple of saplings on one of my properties with it, and it did pretty well. It's big, heavy, tough-feeling, and nasty looking, so it appeals to me on a couple of levels.

That said, if I hadn't been given this thing as a gift, but had seen it on a table at a flea market, I'd probably pay at most ten or fifteen bucks for it. Twenty would be stretching it. For the work that I was told was involved cutting the blade to the proper shape (for the handle) and the work involved in drilling through this steel in order to be able to mount the wood scales, there's no way that twenty bucks would make it worth someone's time. That's the honest truth of it.

Also, bear in mind that there are folks on this board who are exceptionally particular and have certain benchmarks they look for in steel. Well, you can count those folks out of your customer base right off the bat. Some others may be more into what you're considering selling, but honestly, with so many good knifemakers here on the board selling their products...well, I sincerely wish you the best in your endeavor.

 

[ninjarabbi]

I'd love to have a knife like that if it performed well but yeah I don't think its really something that would go for a lot of money. As a project for fun and to make beater knives out of stuff that would normally go to waste then its great. Its just not really a huge money maker. I've also heard of people making knives out of old files so you might want to check some garage sales and whatnot for those if you decide to go this route.

 

[SURVIVAL&WEAPONS]

Thanks for the feedback guys. With this project i want to undertake its mainly to get the practice of, and to see how an attempt of me trying to make a knife out of the "rough of what it could be" and to see the results. But i hear you guys; things like this are generally not going to be something everyone wants. But like i said the info is greatly appreciated.

 

[McVeyMac]

I think that it would be a good learning experience for you to learn to grind out a blade, but the value of the resulting product would likely only be realized by you. I doubt that you would develop a market for these, but some of the junk that I see coming from unnamed countries, I'm confident that you can do better. But the heat treat issue is one you might address. This is a skill you will likely want to gain if you want to get into bladesmithing. A brush beater with rust and pits is always useful. So they might sell at flea markets, etc.

 

[Sonnydaze]

A lesson I learned too late. Once upon a time....I made a "sample" full-length drop-point hunter knife out of Lucite (plastic sheet). It looked nice. I then ordered some special super-steel from some mill in Minnesota, and began to cut out the knife. I immediately broke several bandsaw blades at the Carpentry Shop in the hospital where I worked. They were not happy. The steel suffered not at all. I did.
I never tried another knife...and that was in the '70's.
Lesson: Don't start out with a steel that is too hard to work.

 

[ATwistedStaple]

I like the idea of upcycled blades, especially if you can put product out at a great price. I get a cool blade that I can guiltlessly abuse the hell out of, my money stays in the local community and an emerging knifemaker gets to hone his skills with little investment. Wins all around.

 

[SURVIVAL&WEAPONS]

i like the idea of upcycled blades, especially if you can put product out at a great price. I get a cool blade that i can guiltlessly abuse the hell out of, my money stays in the local community and an emerging knifemaker gets to hone his skills with little investment. Wins all around.

i'm working on it currently its my 1st time trying and i'm kinda near done with my first one like 85% that one is a crazy clip point its go a major up-sweep. And i started another one today after removing excess meta from the first, its a drop point, i sharpened the first one with tho only heat put on it when i heated it up to flatten it and ive cut some paper easily and some para-cord which also cut quite easily, bette than i thought it would do (thought it would cut squat.) its still sharp, and has a nice tapper to the tip, still need to make the blade look better and perfect the whole form, but as for my first knife using some crap i found its turning out good. I also believe the steel is some sort of tool steel, my dad thinks its from a rototiller and the steel takes a lot out of the wheels i'm using with the grinder, i don't know i think that its a possibility because they are used and there is barely any damage to them and i mean just little cosmetic things like a small bend in the original edge from hitting a hard rock o something, the steel is really tough its not soft at all and i'm pretty sure its a carbon steel, wish i knew how to test what steel it is. But from what i'm seeing with the short term results the knife may turn out good if i play my cards right and don't screw it up.

Also for the drop point i took off the original grind and i'm going to extend the handle area to fit my hand. In the end i believe i'm going to end up wit about 3-4 inches of cutting edge if i go through with my finger choil and jimping plan i sharpied on the blade. I wish i had a paid membership to upload pic's for you guys so you can see what i'm talking about. So you can see what it used to be, to what it is now.

 

[Kevin Wilkins]

A lesson I learned too late. Once upon a time....I made a "sample" full-length drop-point hunter knife out of Lucite (plastic sheet). It looked nice. I then ordered some special super-steel from some mill in Minnesota, and began to cut out the knife. I immediately broke several bandsaw blades at the Carpentry Shop in the hospital where I worked. They were not happy. The steel suffered not at all. I did.
I never tried another knife...and that was in the '70's.
Lesson: Don't start out with a steel that is too hard to work.

Maybe the "lesson learned" should be "Don't try and cut steel on a bandsaw in a carpentry shop" – which was most likely a bandsaw for woodworking! Making knives is fairly easy as far as metal working goes, but you still need some basic knowledge to avoid damaging machinery and yourself...

 

[gooeytek]

bandsaw blades, yes. lawnmower blades, no.